Month: May 2006

Ok. First off, a lot my new readers haven’t read this post. It’s a repost of something I wrote in 2004 and it is still totally true today. We have to look at our voting system and try and fix it.

A few months ago I wrote this post. And that is the one I’m going to talk about today. There is a movement that I heartedly support and I think you should as well. It’s about a really cool legislative hack that will let the states get rid of the electoral college (which many scholars agree is just a bad way to elect a president).

The reason I write about it today is that the bill just passed in California! The same bill has passed in Colorado and is on the way to being passed in other states as well. I have written my Legislators in Pennsylvania and I ask all of you to read up on the “National Popular Election of the President” movement and if you agree with it, write your legislators as well.

In Above Average Jane today, she has a post titled “Our Part of the Bargain“. Here is my take on the Hoeffel comment in it:

While I greatly respect Joe Hoeffel I think his response was too idealistic. It is partially true however. There is no doubt that staying informed is an important part of being a citizen in America. But I think that he’s overlooking the fact that most Americans do not exercise their actual right to vote. We in America have simply stopped voting. Look at the turnout results for any election in the past 10 years. They are clearly pitiful. Nobody votes anymore. But yet, we all seem to be able to complain.

I believe that the biggest problem in America today is not the Republican agenda, it’s that by not voting, we the people have let that agenda become reality. When turnouts are as low as they are, the Democratic and Republican parties have a much easier time getting their candidates elected. Tactics like vote suppression, targeted mail and phone calls, single issue pandering are all infinitely more effective when they are practiced on small groups. Lately the Democrats have been floundering, but there is no doubt that they will ride the Republican failures into office and as a Democrat, I kind of fear that as well. The Democratic agenda will be revenge. How much actual good government will occur then?

We the people need to assert ourselves. We need to elect candidates that actually care about their constituencies. We need to elect candidates that want to work with others and make progress in government. As far as I’m concerned, these candidates can come from any party as long as they represent a core set of values and beliefs that overlap my own. If everyone in America were to vote, I can’t imagine that our government would reflect the will of the people instead of the special interests.

Ok. First off, a lot my new readers haven’t read this post. It’s a repost of something I wrote in 2004 and it is still totally true today. We have to look at our voting system and try and fix it.

A few months ago I wrote this post. And that is the one I’m going to talk about today. There is a movement that I heartedly support and I think you should as well. It’s about a really cool legislative hack that will let the states get rid of the electoral college (which many scholars agree is just a bad way to elect a president).

The reason I write about it today is that the bill just passed in California! The same bill has passed in Colorado and is on the way to being passed in other states as well. I have written my Legislators in Pennsylvania and I ask all of you to read up on the “National Popular Election of the President” movement and if you agree with it, write your legislators as well.

In Above Average Jane today, she has a post titled “Our Part of the Bargain“. Here is my take on the Hoeffel comment in it:

While I greatly respect Joe Hoeffel I think his response was too idealistic. It is partially true however. There is no doubt that staying informed is an important part of being a citizen in America. But I think that he’s overlooking the fact that most Americans do not exercise their actual right to vote. We in America have simply stopped voting. Look at the turnout results for any election in the past 10 years. They are clearly pitiful. Nobody votes anymore. But yet, we all seem to be able to complain.

I believe that the biggest problem in America today is not the Republican agenda, it’s that by not voting, we the people have let that agenda become reality. When turnouts are as low as they are, the Democratic and Republican parties have a much easier time getting their candidates elected. Tactics like vote suppression, targeted mail and phone calls, single issue pandering are all infinitely more effective when they are practiced on small groups. Lately the Democrats have been floundering, but there is no doubt that they will ride the Republican failures into office and as a Democrat, I kind of fear that as well. The Democratic agenda will be revenge. How much actual good government will occur then?

We the people need to assert ourselves. We need to elect candidates that actually care about their constituencies. We need to elect candidates that want to work with others and make progress in government. As far as I’m concerned, these candidates can come from any party as long as they represent a core set of values and beliefs that overlap my own. If everyone in America were to vote, I can’t imagine that our government would reflect the will of the people instead of the special interests.

You know.. I totally forgot to rant like a crazy person today about this little earthquake that occured in Indonesia. Yea, you may not have heard because the MSM is feeding you more important stories like the DC sniper trial, the Jimmy Hoffa search, and the Jolie-Pitt baby.

Yea, you many not have noticed that like 5000 people are dead from this little occurance. Let me put that in pierspective, that’s almost 2 times the number of Americans killed in Iraq, it’s more than 50% more fatalities than in 9/11, and more than 60% more than in Katrina.

So I ask you this, what makes an Indonesian life any less newsworthy or important?

Linking to good posts is kind of a cop out, I know, but I’m not inspired today.. well, that’s not true at all, I’ve got all these ideas but I can’t focus on one and even if I could I just don’t feel like writing..

Anyway, Matt Stoller posting on MyDD.com has a perfect take on what the “War on Terror” is and I suggest you give it a read:

During this so-called war on terror, we haven’t caught Osaba bin Laden. The number of terrorist incidents has dramatically increased since 2001. Global warming and pandemics are threatening our very way of life, fiscal imbalances threaten to wreck the global economy, the government is cooking the economic books, and you can top that off with a severe and looming energy crisis for good measure. Oh, and the Constitution has been eviscerated, we went to war based on lies without politicla consequences, and the military is being ruined.

You know.. I totally forgot to rant like a crazy person today about this little earthquake that occured in Indonesia. Yea, you may not have heard because the MSM is feeding you more important stories like the DC sniper trial, the Jimmy Hoffa search, and the Jolie-Pitt baby.

Yea, you many not have noticed that like 5000 people are dead from this little occurance. Let me put that in pierspective, that’s almost 2 times the number of Americans killed in Iraq, it’s more than 50% more fatalities than in 9/11, and more than 60% more than in Katrina.

So I ask you this, what makes an Indonesian life any less newsworthy or important?

Linking to good posts is kind of a cop out, I know, but I’m not inspired today.. well, that’s not true at all, I’ve got all these ideas but I can’t focus on one and even if I could I just don’t feel like writing..

Anyway, Matt Stoller posting on MyDD.com has a perfect take on what the “War on Terror” is and I suggest you give it a read:

During this so-called war on terror, we haven’t caught Osaba bin Laden. The number of terrorist incidents has dramatically increased since 2001. Global warming and pandemics are threatening our very way of life, fiscal imbalances threaten to wreck the global economy, the government is cooking the economic books, and you can top that off with a severe and looming energy crisis for good measure. Oh, and the Constitution has been eviscerated, we went to war based on lies without politicla consequences, and the military is being ruined.